Panorama from the Sky

Looking through all my old photographs, I noticed that I took a series of photos in portrait orientation of roughly the same thing.  Then I realized that I had taken overlapping shots of Washington State’s mountains from inside a plane intending to make a panorama because the mountains were just barely peeking through the clouds. They sort of looked like islands to me, stranded in the middle of a vast sea.

I then decided that the photograph should be in black and white to showcase the textures and the cragginess of the mountain peaks.  To keep my sanity, I used Photoshop’s photomerge tool and it worked quite nicely to me.  If you look closely, there’s some minor imperfections but otherwise the automatic process did its job and made a panorama ready for cropping to the appropriate size.

Notes:
Multiple shots taken with Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi.
All shots recorded at the same setting shutter speed and aperture.
Shutter Speed: 1/200s.
Aperture: f/11.0.
ISO 100.
Edited and Stitched with Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Pink Sunset Clouds

Before heading off to see a client for a tutoring session, I saw that the clouds were pinkish: a sign that sunset was imminent. I snapped a photo hurriedly before I left so I could see the sun setting as I crossed the bridge to get to my client’s home. It was beautiful.

Notes:

Taken with iPhone 4.

Layers in the Drink

I love the layers on this photograph. If i had the right set up, I would have shot this from the side with a black background. It’s sort of inconvenient to bring a black matte sheet around and lighting when I’m out with friends so I make do with this oblique shot. The eye is drawn to the top of the drink and the layers come as a nice surprise afterwards. Drink up.

Notes:
Taken with iPhone 4.
Edited with Pixlr-o-matic iPhone App.

It’s Just Like Building a Lego Toy

I decided just a few days ago that I should upgrade my computer. Actually, it’s more that I started fresh and new rather than upgrading. There’s parts from my old desktop that I used to assemble this new one, notably its chassis (tower/case/shell/whatever).

At any rate, assembling a computer is very therapeutic to me because it’s just like building a Lego toy. Except there’s bits of metal amongst all the plastic. There are directions on how to install the processor, graphics cards, and hard disks which is all fine and dandy. The challenge is working with the space constraints of the chassis itself. In some occasions, the components have to go in at a very specific order so that they can all fit inside the chassis. It’s sort of an art form like that.

This sort of mucking around with parts can also lead to frustration simply because things almost fit but not quite. Conversely, getting everything to fit is an exciting affair in and of itself.

Once all is said and done, it’s time to hook everything up to see if everything works out. I had a few issues with this one because the front lights wouldn’t turn on. It turns out that I had plugged them in backwards. For those of you that are not familiar with LED’s, they are sort of a one way valve for electricity. They let charge flow freely in one direction, but not the other. Setting the wires straight was in itself not a problem but due to space constraints mentioned above, I had to remove a component or two to access the wires and set them straight.

At the time of writing this post, the computer has booted up and is now installing the operating system. The hard part is over and it should be smooth sailing now.

Oh I also got a new keyboard to go with the new computer. That’s what today’s photo is. Cheers.

Notes:
Taken with iPhone 4.
Edited with Instagram iPhone App.

Waiting at the Border

The Peace Arch Border Crossing gets incredibly busy later the day especially on a Sunday. I know this because I’m half a mile away from the crossing and our car is stopped. That’s ok. It gives me some time to write this post.

We took a trip down to Seattle today to get some various sundries. It’s a bit of a drive from Vancouver so we had to leave at about 6 am. We took a pit stop for breakfast and groceries at a big box store for a couple of hours and by noon we were in Tukwila near Seattle. We spent another couple of hours there shopping and grabbing the rest of our sundries. By the time we left it was already about 3 pm and that brings us to the present.

The border line up is apparently an hour long and it can only get longer. On particularly bad days, the wait can be as long as three to four hours. I’m happy that we got here before it got really busy.

Anyway, while on the way back to Vancouver, I snapped a photograph of the highway ahead. So now, since I have some time, I’m writing this post for you. Enjoy.

Notes:
Taken with iPhone 4.

Whenever My Buddy Comes Home for the Weekend…

… We have cheesecake. It seems to be a tradition every couple of months that we meet up. I don’t think we’re there often enough for the staff to recognize us as regulars though even though I order the same drink every time: empress tea.

Notes:
Taken with iPhone 4.
Edited with Instagram iPhone App.

Giant Disco Ball

You’ll just have to take my word for it.  This is a giant disco ball.  There’s really no sense of scale that can be gleaned from the image itself simply because there’s nothing in the image from which we can draw a comparison.  I mean, sure there are pot lights but those can be tiny too.  Anyway, that disco ball was at least three feet in diameter, maybe four.  Incredibly large if I do say so myself.

Notes:
Taken with Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi.
Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM at 28mm.
Shutter Speed: 1/15s.
Aperture: f/3.5.
ISO 1600.
Edited with Adobe Photoshop CS4.